Development of a Robot for Harvesting Strawberries

The lack of available workforce threatens the sustainability and preservation of the agricultural industry in developed countries. The raise of salaries will additionally have a negative impact on the viability of this industry. European farms risk to disappear from markets if no solution is found for the shortage of affordable operating resources. Labor is the most important component in the production cost of a strawberry. In order to preserve the strawberry sites in Europe, the cultivation must become more cost-efficient. The agricultural R&D-company Octinion develops a picking robot that harvests strawberries on tabletop cultivation systems. The robot is a complete, fully autonomous system: it detects the ripe fruits, picks them with no damage, and puts them in a punnet (box in which strawberries are put). The picking system is mounted on a mobile platform that navigates autonomously through the greenhouse. The current prototype of the robot is able to pick a strawberry in 4 seconds. It is therefore a viable alternative for costly human pickers who will be less available in the near future.